The Misappliance Of Science

Previous legend || The Misappliance Of Science || Next legend

Bug in the ear

Unknown: East German secret police "bug" factory now uses skills to make hearing aids.

With the end of the Cold War, many companies and industries that once produced tools for espionage or military activities found themselves without a market. Their choices were to go out of business or switch to producing something entirely different.

The leap from making "bugs", or tiny listening devices designed to be undetectable, to making hearing aids, is a logical one. The expertise required would be similar, and the intellectual property assets developed in the the former would likely translate easily to the latter. However, there is no proof that this has happened: which company is it? As logical as the story sounds, plausibility does not mean it actually happened.